The opening for the latest animated kids’ fantasy is promising — but it’s for another movie. Two teens parked in lovers’ lane are about to smooch when a giant, one-eyed, inescapably phallic alien appears.

A homage to the 1953 War of the Worlds ensues. Then the camera pulls back and we discover that what we’re watching is on a movie screen in a theater on the title planet, a retro-world of green aliens who enjoy the bucolic bliss and paranoia of ’50s US culture. Everybody’s terrified by the threat of alien invasion, and when it does come, it’s a NASA astronaut (Dwayne Johnson) who’s a cowardly and inane version of Buzz Lightyear.

Dorky teenage Lem (Justin Long) grudgingly helps protect the “alien” from the authorities, with the assistance of a Wall•E-like robot. It’s all a creepy mishmash of sci-fi and fantasy classics that director Jorge Blanco tarts up with an unwholesome preoccupation with pee, anal plugs, and homosexual anxiety.

Review: Tooth Fairy Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson dons a pink tutu and wings as Derek, a hockey player who's earned the nickname "The Tooth Fairy" for his knack for knocking out opposing players' bicuspids on the ice.

Review: Frozen A storm is coming, the girl has to pee, and then things get much worse.

Review: The Eclipse Conor McPherson’s unlikely mash-up of an autumn romance and a ghost story for the most part achieves an affecting charm.

Review: Please Give Well, I’ve got my first candidate for Best Supporting Actress for 2010: Ann Morgan Guilbert, who plays Andra, the 90-year-old obstacle to the happiness of a disparate group of Manhattanites who range from the utterly selfish to the overly selfless.

Review: (Untitled) Woody Allen might have passed on making this film 35 years ago because it was too dated and middlebrow.

Review: Z (1969) John F. Kennedy wasn't the only political leader murdered in 1963. On May 22 of that year, Gregoris Lambrakis, a left-leaning, pacifist member of the Greek parliament and an aspiring presidential candidate seeking to replace the reigning right-wing government, was assaulted after a peace rally in Thessaloniki. He died five days later.

Review: Observe and Report Jody Hill's ambiguous and unsettling film is a comedy about law enforcement in much the same way that Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy is a comedy about comedy.